This past Sunday was a fun and busy day for eighth grade girls Yeshiva League basketball. With the help of Hustle & Heart Sports, HALB hosted eight schools from across the three leagues for an all day tournament. Participating schools were HAFTR, HALB, Moriah, Noam, RYNJ, SAR, Shulamith and YHT. To bring home the championship trophy, a school needed to win five games in one day.

Most of the seeding games were close and competitive which led to an exciting playoff tournament. In the opening playoff round, #2 HALB beat #7 HAFTR and #6 RYNJ beat #3 Shulamith both by six points. #4 Noam got the win over #5 SAR and #1 Moriah got the win over #8 YHT.

The semi-finals were rematches of the championship games in both the women-only league and the YMSSA league. This time HALB was able to avenge their finals loss with a nail-biter win over RYNJ, 34-33. In the YMSSA championship rematch, the Noam Knights put up a fight and were only down 14 at the half. Unfortunately for Noam, Moriah was too strong to overcome and Moriah got the win.

There were also two skills competitions at the tournament. The 3 point competition ended with a tie breaker extra round between SAR’s Saskia Wiebke and Moriah’s Isabelle Nadritch. Isabelle won the tie-breaker and took home the trophy. The hotshots competition was won by SAR’s Alex Magence who was able to score 23 points in the one minute allotted time.

After a sponsored Carlos & Gabbys dinner, it was time for the championship game. Moriah came out strong and never relented. They showed and proved they are the #1 team in all three leagues and took home the championship trophy.

Congratulations to Tournament All-Stars Gaby Hoffer (Noam), Adina Haselkorn (RYNJ), Hannah Pfeiffer (HALB) and Isabelle Nadritch (Moriah); Tournament Most Outstanding Player Zoey Levy (Moriah); and the championship team Moriah and their coach Kristin Rainbolt.

Thank you HALB and Hustle & Heart Sports for a wonderful day of girls basketball!

By Jewish Link Sports Desk